WESSON — Some statewide issues and their impact on communitycolleges were among topics of discussion Thursday at Copiah-LincolnCommunity College’s monthly Board of Trustees meeting.

Dr. Howell Garner, college president, praised the recent specialsession passage of a new economic development plan for thestate.

“We, as a community college family, are basically happy with theway this turned out,” Garner told trustees.

Of importance to community colleges are increases in basicskills and job training tax credits for programs held at orapproved by community and junior colleges. Garner sad that planaspect allows community colleges to maintain leadership in trainingprograms and how they are implemented.

“There’s nobody more able to do that . . . than our board,”Garner said.

Co-Lin officials also gave trustees a recap of how communitycolleges are proposing to deal with state funding budget cuts nowand possibly later in the year. Education leaders are forecastingcuts due to state revenue collections not meeting expectations.

“Most everyone reduced their budgets by a percentage,” Garnersaid. “Some got pretty high on their percentages.”

According to the recap, Holmes Community College was going totry to cut its budget by 20-to-30 percent. Other schools werelooking at smaller percentage reductions, with several mentioningtrimming travel expenses, equipment purchase plan changes and notfilling some position vacancies.

Eight of the 15 community colleges were planning some kind oftuition increase. Seven schools, including Co-Lin in the area oftechnology, have approved or were considering increases inschool-related fees.

In other business, trustees authorized the administration tocontinue negotiations on the purchase of 11.5 acres of land nearCo-Lin’s Natchez campus. Co-Lin leaders were pleased to be close tofinalizing purchase of the land, which will be used for a new finearts facility.

Also, for the Wesson campus, trustees approved Carl Nobles asthe architect to design a new men’s dormitory. The new dorm isscheduled to house 64 students.